Comments on: Paul D’Amato and the Red Condomhttps://louisproyect.org/2012/02/06/paul-damato-and-the-red-condom/
Thu, 24 May 2018 11:58:10 +0000hourly1http://wordpress.com/By: The great Lenin debate of 2012 | External Bulletinhttps://louisproyect.org/2012/02/06/paul-damato-and-the-red-condom/#comment-133145
Sat, 21 Jun 2014 17:51:32 +0000http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/?p=6704#comment-133145[…] addition to Lih’s intervention, this debate also prompted response pieces by, among others, Louis Proyect and a pair of Leftist authors from the Communist Party of Great Britain – James […]
]]>By: The Great Lenin Debate of 2012 | Red Partyhttps://louisproyect.org/2012/02/06/paul-damato-and-the-red-condom/#comment-130185
Wed, 18 Jun 2014 20:19:22 +0000http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/?p=6704#comment-130185[…] addition to Lih’s intervention, this debate also prompted response pieces by, among others, Louis Proyect and a pair of Leftist authors from the Communist Party of Great Britain – James Turley andMarc […]
]]>By: The great Lenin debate of 2012 | Red Atlantahttps://louisproyect.org/2012/02/06/paul-damato-and-the-red-condom/#comment-124416
Mon, 09 Jun 2014 17:43:10 +0000http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/?p=6704#comment-124416[…] addition to Lih’s intervention, this debate also prompted response pieces by, among others, Louis Proyect and a pair of Leftist authors from the Communist Party of Great Britain – James Turley and Marc […]
]]>By: Binhhttps://louisproyect.org/2012/02/06/paul-damato-and-the-red-condom/#comment-60827
Tue, 28 Feb 2012 04:40:29 +0000http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/?p=6704#comment-60827– Z&K scabbed because they feared an insurrection would fail. Their letter which Trotsky quotes in “Lessons of October” has not been reproduced in English so it’s impossible to see what the substance of their arguments were outside of Trotsky’s lens.

– The Bolsheviks defended the Provisional Government from Kornilov. If that’s not “support insofar as” I don’t know what is.

]]>By: Jason Risinghttps://louisproyect.org/2012/02/06/paul-damato-and-the-red-condom/#comment-60756
Fri, 24 Feb 2012 07:21:59 +0000http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/?p=6704#comment-60756The Lih article is useful but only confirms my evaluation of Lih as not understanding the politics. He admits that Old Bolshevism’s conception was “democratic revolution to the end”, wants to say Old Bolshevism “triumphed,” yet doesn’t address the conflict with Lenin’s idea that October was a socialist revolution that established a workers’ state. On a less theoretical level, it doesn’t address the issues I already raised:
* Z&K scabbing in the press on October and Lenin’s worry that he would have to resign from the CC to take the revolution forward.
* He doesn’t understand why Lenin’s no support to the imperialist government was different than seeing the Provisional Government as “counterrevolutionary” in the abstract but being willing to support it “insofar as”.
]]>By: Jason Risinghttps://louisproyect.org/2012/02/06/paul-damato-and-the-red-condom/#comment-60540
Sat, 11 Feb 2012 23:21:46 +0000http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/?p=6704#comment-60540I had read the CPGB article before–haven’t read the other one (jason.socialist@googlemail.com for Lih doc). My take on Lih is that he’s a great historian and a terrible political thinker. I could accept based on his research that the canonical summary is oversimplified if that were explained better, but he doesn’t even attempt to address key political questions of the difference between “no support to the provincial government” versus support it insofar as it does well and why Z&K scabbed in the press on the Oct. revolution, why the Bolsheviks couldn’t merge with the Mensheviks (which much of the Old Bolsheviks wanted), etc. It’s like all great political debates come down to translation errors for us and misunderstandings for the participants. If it’s so simple, one wonders why there hasn’t been another October. Perhaps the longer article will cast more light, we’ll see.
]]>By: Binhhttps://louisproyect.org/2012/02/06/paul-damato-and-the-red-condom/#comment-60525
Sat, 11 Feb 2012 18:35:43 +0000http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/?p=6704#comment-60525Comrades Louis and Jason, I suggest reading Lars Lih’s work on the April debates:http://www.cpgb.org.uk/article.php?article_id=1004181http://booksandjournals.brillonline.com/content/10.1163/187633111×566048 (I can email either of you this document if you want)

Lih’s work seriously undermines Trotsky’s version of events in which Lenin comes from afar to save the day from the Old Bolshevik leadership with his own version of “Trotskyism” (April Theses).

]]>By: Jason Risinghttps://louisproyect.org/2012/02/06/paul-damato-and-the-red-condom/#comment-60456
Fri, 10 Feb 2012 02:36:57 +0000http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/?p=6704#comment-60456I would prefer engaging in this debate if it were presented in the serious fashion it deserved–and by serious I don’t mean so much dropping the condom metaphor but that the post seems to be more concerned with throwing mud than clarifying the basic issues. For all the irony about the simplicity of the “party of a new type” arguments in question, the basic idea that it was the Bolsheviks at the helm of the only successful socialist revolution, that they did it AGAINST the Mensheviks and that something was different than figures like Debs refusing to attend party conventions, L & L in Germany, etc.–that basic idea is ignored.

Proyect would like to dismiss all that with “There’s only one problem with this. When Lenin issued the April Theses in 1917, he was opposed by a majority of the Bolshevik Central Committee. Was there a hole in the condom?” Yes there was a hole in the condom–many holes as the Bolsheviks weren’t perfect and no party ever will be but more specifically because Lenin’s approach was only an approximation of what was necessary and what the Third International started to develop further: he was prepared to see the reality of permanent revolution when it was in his face but he had theoretically inadequately prepared the party leadership with his theory of democratic dictatorship and he had to break from it (or evolve past it). The “party of a new type” was also not yet consciously being fought for or developed as an international leadership which it must be.

Also key is that Proyect’s witticism (oh, if only such witticisms could clarify fundamental questions of revolution) is that he focuses on the CC for a reason and that reason is Proyect knows Lenin was aware he could rely on the ranks of the party and the ranks of the radicalizing workers being brought into the party to overcome the CC…but he couldn’t and wouldn’t compromise with the Menshevik organization and fought against those same CCers on that issue that Proyect holds up here as an counter-argument.

Proyect can only sweep the question of party and program under the rug with a comparison to Scientology by ignoring these issues. A lot of good that does anyone.

]]>By: the red star twinkles mischievouslyhttps://louisproyect.org/2012/02/06/paul-damato-and-the-red-condom/#comment-60367
Wed, 08 Feb 2012 10:55:13 +0000http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/?p=6704#comment-60367Cuba is a bureaucratic despotism. Whether it is labelled ‘state capitalist’ or not. Its ruling class is just as oppressive as any other, if not more so. Does no one remember the ‘re-education camps’ Cuba had for so called ‘sexual deviants’? Hardly an example of socialist democracy or an extension of liberty. Or the fact that it is a monarchy, with power passing directly from Fidel to his brother. I thought socialists were opposed to monarchies? I know I am, but many are not, even to this day when no one could possibly justify their illusions in Cuba. To talk about Castro as if he were some revolutionary democrat is the most arrant nonesense, whatever efforts he has made to cultivate this illusion worldwide, and especially in Latin America. Seriously, the socialist movement has been tainted to death by Stalinism and association with dictatorships- why continue on this ignoble path? Chavez and Morales have been far more democratic than Fidel and his cronies, who have long ago spent whatever respect they deserved by overthrowing Batista by maintaining a one party state. As such, Chavez and Morales, while never forgetting their problems, faults, and deficiencies, deserve far more of our admiration.
]]>By: David Ellishttps://louisproyect.org/2012/02/06/paul-damato-and-the-red-condom/#comment-60318
Tue, 07 Feb 2012 16:49:13 +0000http://louisproyect.wordpress.com/?p=6704#comment-60318Cliff was an idiot but this is not an attack on his centrist leanings but on Lenin who correctly, as Trotsky conceded later, defended the Marxist method and its conclusions against the liquidators. The internal regime of a marxist outfit should be thoroughly democratic and its external relations non-sectarian, exemplary, principled but there is one thing that is not up for negotiation: that it be Marxist.
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